I lived a nightmare yesterday. Everything that my anxiety made me imagine, came true, over laundry. Laundry. Lesson: any reason is excuse enough when you reach saturation. Our collective conscious had.
I have lived such nightmares, images from which have stayed with me for 26 years. Unless technology advances, I will live them forever. One image is of my mother’s long plait tossed away in a blue dustbin, angrily cut off as punishment to us, after what sounded like a loud episode outside the room I was hiding in. Another one is of papa searching a city for mummy with policemen, even though I never saw it from his side. Thinking back, I feel stupid that we did not expect papa’s heart condition. He has been absorbing too much. How does one do that? become a sponge, a shock-up system?
I, I can’t even get myself to forget yesterday. Things happened at the speed of light. Clothes were thrown, as were hands. They hurt each other. They had to be pulled apart, confined in separate rooms. At some point in the chaos, my room was flooded with bags threatening to leave. Work suffered, I questioned my ability to work at all, I got haunting images in my head, and I could not protect anyone. Everyone hurt but survived the potent calm that follows wars. The counting of the dead, figuring of losses, and preparing contingency plans for when the war returns. Stuck zippers, loose buttons, lazy soup-makers, and irritating internet speed provided our hands with something to do, but the war kept returning.
Baby R walked into this hurting place at night. And from no provocative, in that crowded room, over the bags, with the tension intact outside, we danced. In our bathrobes, dripping hair water around like puppies, we danced to our ‘this-will-make-things-better- songs, her’s “badhiya badhiya” and mine “maratgasti”. The room filled with our laughter, and for the first time, I was forced to believe Ruskin Bond and trust his life lessons. When all wars are over butterflies will still be beautiful.